stanley hauerwas
PASSAGES FROM THE book of Hebrews show up in the lectionary every Sunday this month. In Ernst Käsemann's landmark book The Wandering People of God, written in the context of 1930s Germany, this pastor and theologian characterizes the community described in the Epistle to the Hebrews as a people who wander in the wilderness of this world. “The basic posture of the bearer of [God’s] revelation should, in fact, be described as a wandering,” Käsemann writes; “the attitude of faith can only be described as wandering.” He locates the identity of the church in the biblical stories of Israel in the wilderness—the church as a people estranged from imperial power.
“I of course had in mind that radical Confessing Church which resisted the [Nazi] tyranny in Germany,” Käsemann wrote decades later, reflecting on his book as anti-fascist ecclesiology—a biblical theology for a German antifa church movement. When a society coheres around a nationalist identity that designates segments of the population as “other” and therefore a threat to patriotic unity, “the church must appear as a band of deserters.” To desert such nationalistic ideologies is to wander in search for Jesus because, according to Hebrews, he appears at the edge of society, outside the civic union, beyond the border—Jesus as the one who suffers “outside the city gate,” on the other side of the wall (Hebrews 13:12).
The last chapter of Hebrews invites the faithful to solidarity with Jesus, which involves a commitment to excluded people, to scapegoated populations: “Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured” (Hebrews 13:13).
IMAGINE AN UNLIKELY DUET. One singer is National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg, a conservative political columnist who admits he indulged in “smash-mouth” rhetoric and once did a video mocking “social justice” as meaningless mush. The other is religion scholar Diana Butler Bass, a progressive liberal and author who champions social justice as central to a life of faith. Both published books this spring, and as they made separate media rounds, they sang the same song—an ode to gratitude.
Gratitude is having a big turn in the spotlight right now as influential writers, university researchers bolstered with millions in foundation grant funds, #blessed social media mavens, and more tout thankfulness as a boon to one’s spirit and health.
On Monday, Oct. 31, in Sweden, Pope Francis will take part in an ecumenical service commemorating the beginning of the Protestant Reformation’s 500th year.
It is stunning to think the start of this momentous anniversary features a visit from the Roman pope.
And it raises a question: Does the Reformation still matter?
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has declined a series of lectures he was scheduled to give at New York’s General Theological Seminary in November in the wake of the crisis roiling the school.
On Oct. 8, the Christian ethicist said he does not want to get in the middle of a controversy involving the resignations or firings of eight faculty.
Two weeks ago, the eight faculty members quit teaching classes and attending official seminary meetings or chapel services until they could sit down with the Board of Trustees.
Hauerwas, who is professor emeritus of divinity and law at Duke Divinity School, said he pulled out of the lecture series so he would not appear to take a side.
“I was looking forward to going because I’ve known of General for my whole academic life, but I had never been there. At one time, it represented a commitment to an Anglo-Catholic tradition with which I’m very sympathetic,” said Hauerwas, who attends an Episcopal church in Chapel Hill, N.C. “I think the situation is one of deep pathos; it’s just pathetic. I’m sorry that I’ve gotten caught in it.”
Even as the world’s powers grasped for a last-minute resolution to the crisis in Syria, it remained an open question whether any amount of diplomacy could prevent the conflict from claiming at least one more victim: the classic Christian teaching known as the “just war” tradition.
The central problem is not that the just war doctrine is being dismissed or condemned, but that it is loved too much. Indeed, both sides in the debate over punishing the Syrian regime for using chemical weapons are citing just war theory, but are reaching diametrically opposed conclusions.
War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity, by Stanley Hauerwas.
During my last year of college, my pastor lent me the book Living Gently in a Violent World, co-authored by Jean Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas. This book is an exploration on how followers of Christ ought to live in broken world.
The introduction of the book recounts the story of Jean Vanier teaching a course on pastoral care. During one class, Vanier asked the students to share some of their spiritual experiences. One of the students, Angela (who was deaf) began to share a dream she had where she met Jesus in heaven. She recalled talking with Jesus for some time and never experiencing so much joy and peace. "Jesus was everything I had hoped he would be," she said, "And his signing was amazing!" Vanier explains to the reader that "for Angela, heaven's perfection did not involve being 'healed' of her deafness. Rather, it was a place where the social, relational, and communication barriers that restricted her life in the present no longer existed."